


A Path for the Lost

by Stonehill



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Guilt, Implied Romance, Mid-Time Skip, Ren family - Freeform, Reunions, introspective, slight angst, very subtle romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonehill/pseuds/Stonehill
Summary: "Water is not like heat or strength magic. Water moves like the energy in our bodies, the energy of the very earth. Even the energy that moves between people. Sometimes, it gets blocked or redirected, But that doesn’t stop it. Water is never motionless, and even if it is blocked it will slowly erode what is holding it back, until it can move on. Or find a different path."





	A Path for the Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Magi is over! Can you believe it!  
> This has always been one of my favorite manga and I wrote a lot for it before I got obsessed with Daiya (it really has been such a long time since I wrote something NOT daiya), so I thought I'd write something to celebrate that it finished.
> 
> Since it HAS been a while since I wrote something for this series I also wanted to write for it to see how I've grown. I think I've learnt a lot about gender representation by writing M/M and how I really didn't do female characters justice before and .....I love Kougyoku and I LOVE her ending SO MUCH, but because of that I also feel like I underestimated her character and did wrong by her with how I wrote her before.
> 
> So this fic is about her character development in the three year time skip, an experiment on showing empathy between two characters that have a lot in common without it escalating into something even remotely clear-cut.
> 
> Anyway, here we go! I hope you'll like it!! (fingers crossed)

A star winks into existence high above on a ghostly night, barely noticeable from the ground. It casts no light for the weary to see, is little help at all in the endless darkness, unless you know how to navigate by it. 

Most people don't even look up, and so are never aware of its presence.

Kougyoku sees it.

Water, cool in the suffocating heat, laps against her cheek. It breaks in small waves, soaks her many layers and weighs her down. She thinks she can feel its power holding her up, thinks, if she tries hard enough, that she can feel the rukh all around her in the clean pool. But it rushes past her, a thousand golden birds not paying her any heed, her limbs too heavy with fatigue to lift her, guide her to the right path.

Only black birds look back over their shoulders, sitting on bridges in the garden, on newly rebuilt rooftops, on the tips of spears, guarding the harem.

Kougyoku doesn't mind their presence.

She knows she ought to. After everything that's happened, she should be appalled by her own passivity, but she cannot muster the strength. She cannot be bothered.

There isn't much left of her, really; an empty shell of a princess, too beloved by long dead brothers, and the one still alive, to be accused of treason.

Sound is smothered here, drowned out. The gentle whisper of the wind, the mournful lovesong of the nightinggale, the warning screech of a cicada. So she feels the new direction of the water as somebody dips their toes in rather than hears them approach.

"Hey, Kougyoku. Won't you teach me something?"

There is always life in Aladdin's voice, practiced cheer that does not quite fit the paleness of his skin and the wiser edge to his eyes.

He foregoes honorifics when he speaks to her these days, as he stays ever closer to the people not yet lost in the fray.

"You sure are rude," is her way of greeting, but the indignant tone is dead, leaving nothing but a hollow voice behind. He reminds her too much of lost friends, her only friends, to bear his presence, and she's grateful to the numbness for it shields her from the humiliation that tears would bring. "Sneaking into the imperial harem like this."

Silence greets her and still she refuses to grant him a look. The water doesn't feel as cool anymore, and the memories are scorching her, gaining more power.

Little Kouha who loves his experiments, nearly becoming one on the battlefield.

A hoard of horsemen thundering towards her. 

Alibaba's body, chopped to pieces. The sun long dead, never to rise for the power of the long silence.

A voice in her head, whispering and whispering. Binding her will and her heart with ever stronger chains until she's suffocating.

Until she can't know right from wrong.

"Oh, who cares about all that."

It's a little stained this time, the cheerfulness; there is something heavier in his voice, like Aladdin knows of the images passing through her mind, and it brushes her skin, a fresh breeze unexpected in a desert burn.

The black birds shift on their perches uncomfortably, disturbed at the Magi's presence.

His words prompt her to shift her head. It's a slow tilt; he's sitting to her left, a halo of palace light creating a strict line around his silhouette, making him glow. There are signs of too much growth, too suddenly, body pulling skin taut, using too much energy, a little boy developing the foundations of manhood. But it's left him deadly thin, gaunt, save for the brightness of his eyes and the darkness of his skin. He is of the desert lands, burnt by its unforgiving suns, not welcome at the edge of the water.

And yet...

It laps gently at his knees, greeting the magi as a child welcomes an older brother, a beloved family member. His dark robes stick to his limbs, having soaked up the water, but he obviously doesn't care.

His staff is nowhere to be found.

"What do you want?" She demands, voice breathy, a sigh.

She's weak, isolated. Nobody should have disturbed her. It's only what she deserves.

Aladdin moves his feet slowly up and down in the water, eyes watching the current it creates. His fingers grip the edge, like he's seeking the support of the earth itself; broken tiles and cracked terracotta. Nothing, after all, is as whole and unsullied as it once was.

His eyes, deep as sorrow, finally find her. And a smile follows. "Magoi," he says simply. "Teach me about it."

Kougyoku snorts. "What is there for me to teach a magi about magic?"

"Plenty." There is laughter in the voice, but it is the shocked trill of surprise. Of genuine reaction. It is a mere shadow of their once existent rows, children caught in the world of a different god, incapable of finding the will to escape. "One thing is to know. Another is the ability to use that knowledge."

Kougyoku knits her brows. Confusing. He's always been that, this boy from another dimension. "I'm still not the right one to teach you," she reminds him, stiffly. "I can't use magic."

"That's not true. You use it when you use your metal vessel."

"I know that," she retorts, impatiently raising her voice. She tilts in the water, soaked clothes dragging her down so she's vertical, facing him. "But as you may have noticed I don't have that anymore!"

They're words she hasn't uttered for weeks, too busy mourning the loss. Of brothers. Of sisters. Of peace. Of power. Of a golden friend. Sometimes of her sanity.

The spirit of sorrow and isolation. 

It certainly hasn't left her.

But the power that came with it has been taken from her, stolen without her consent.

She could have respected the decision. If it had been hers to make. If it had been Hakuryuu's; she trusts Hakuryuu. She respects him. 

But it had not been her decision to give up her metal vessel. It had not been Hakuryuu's decision as emperor for all Kou's metal vessel users to give up their weapons. For the army to be disbanded.

It had been Sinbad's.

And there had been nothing any of them could do, chained by their hands and feet, collars choking their voices into silence. The weight of their guilt too great to break free.

Sinbad had won, and the knowledge that she'd  been a key tool for his victory had made it all so much worse.

Aladdin cocks his head to the side, eyes straying to the black birds, shuffling their wings in her periphery. He watches them pensively, almost as if he's telling them, and the newcomers to stay still, to not move from their perches, before he returns his attention to Kougyoku.

"I know," is all he says.

And there is an empathy in his eyes, deep and sorrowfully blue, which nearly shatters her as their eyes meet. It is not pity, but understanding.

And it makes her angry.

It's a burst of emotion that cuts clean through her apathy. She doesn't want his pity or his understanding. How dare he. They all knew, of course they did; the ridiculous, inconsequential little princess going doeeyed and getting manipulated by a man who only wanted her for her political uses. Like every other man.

How dare he, when he will never lose his place in this world. When he is free and independent, a mere child. Aladdin has the world at his fingertips, the son of Solomon, the King himself. He's capable of anything and everything and he has nothing to fear, for he can do nothing wrong, can hurt nobody he cares about.

Because he always makes the right decisions. Always believes in the right people.

"Go away," she hisses, venom in her voice, on her tongue. In her blood.

Aladdin pulls back a little, mouth bending at the edges. There's a vulnerable tremble to his frown. Like he doesn't know what to say. "No."

"If you don't leave, then I will."

Her declaration is frost and ice and she can see the way her words chill him.

But Aladdin stays stubbornly where he is, so Kougyoku has to march off.

She doesn't look back.

* * *

"Teach me something."

"No."

He pouts and splashes water at her, and she wishes he would fall in and drown.

"Why are you here again?" 

Aladdin grins at her, baby fat and sharp canines, victorious too soon. "Because you're back here again."

Kougyoku harrumphs and rolls onto her back, arms spreading in the water to help her balance. Above them the sun is setting, dyeing the sky a warm pink. Blue night is dawning, and she can no longer see the blood of her siblings, her beloved brothers, her country, in its eternity.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" she demands, immediately regretting her words. 

She's not supposed to care.

If Kogyoku talks to him he'll just feel encouraged, and keep coming back to pester her when all she wants is to be alone.

"It means, you didn't answer my question last time," comes the simple statement of fact.

She looks over just in time to catch a cheerful smile, and then has to swallow water when he lets himself drop into her pool.

Kougyoku chokes and splutters, protesting and complaining. "Wha- Aladdin! I let you in here because it's easier than kicking you out, _but stay out of my pool_!" 

He's not a good swimmer. Not by any means, hands flailing in too small movements to be useful and chin held at an awkward angle so he doesn't swallow water. But he still laughs. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Is that all you think about?"

Before she knows it she's swum over to him, hand supporting a slim back, fingers brushing sharp shoulder blades, too weak, really, to carry the weight of the world. And he grins at her.

"I wish!"

"You're impossible," she chides and then proceedes to show him how to keep himself afloat.

When she's sure he's treading water properly and won't drown on her she pushes back, away from him, until she can face the sky again. 

"Wait," Aladdin says, fingers grasping her wrist. They're thin, spider's threads, their hold easy to break. But they beg her “stop", and so she stops, eyes narrowing in a sullen pout. "I—"

His voice dies in his throat, trembles on its last breath, and he fumbles, blue slipping away into a sheepish smile. "Vinea is yours.

"It will always be yours," he hurries on, nearly stumbling over his words, eyes finding her, desperately boyish. "Distance does not break your contract or your bond. The dragon is a part of you as much as you are part of it, and it can never be stolen from you."

Kougyoku opens her mouth to say something. When nothing comes out she closes it again. She can feel her heart beating in her chest suddenly, the cool of the water against her skin, Aladdin's fingers trickling away from her, traces of heat against her skin, drowning in the darkness of the pool. 

Above them a star winks into existence on a clear sky. A golden bird flutters over their heads, a single feather falling from its coat and landing between them on the surface, ringlets in the water breaking against them silently, unnoticed.

And Kougyoku laughs. It's silly and loud and completely breathless, making her stomach cramp, so she nearly swallows water. Her cheeks feel warm under the pressure of contracted muscles, but it is nothing in comparison to the emptiness in her chest, the ache left behind, some of which abandons her, as she laughs. She laughs and laughs, until she wonders if she'll ever be able to stop.

It echoes across the empty courtyard. Emperor Hakuryuu does not employ the uses of the harem, does not force his sisters into solitude and does not take concubines himself. There are no servants here, no maids to gossip, no guards to hear the trickle of the water. It is, in essence, the perfect place to isolate yourself.

And yet, Kougyoku has never felt less alone than she does now.

All the while Aladdin waits and watches, relief dancing in his bright blue eyes.

"Okay," she says, when she's regained control of her laughter, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "What do you want to know?"

A smile, genuine and true, overwhelming and elated, spreads across his face, blue eyes speaking with curiosity and glee. “Thank you!”

Aladdin grasps her hands briefly, eagerly, as if it’s natural to touch another human being, and it makes her smile, wobbly and astonished. But he has already let go of her again, too focused to notice.

"Magnostadt Academy has always claimed that they’ve unveiled the true uses of magic, and their theories correspond with those found in Alma Torran. But it’s not everything found in Alma Torran and there’s a long way to go before the magic users of this world can reach the level of King Solomon and his retinue.”

He pauses for breath.

Aladdin has a way of calmly getting away with himself; excitement or anger or terror all visible on his face. He knows what he wants and he doesn’t always like it when he can’t get it. But, not unlike Sinbad, he’s the type of person that people like, that people feel at ease with. So it’s not often he doesn’t get just what he wants.

She wonders if she’s been the first to ever stand in his way… To cause him true pain.

And for the first time she wonders what happened afterwards. She won’t consider her actions wrong; protecting Judal and her country had, at the time been the right decision, but on a personal level, she doesn’t like that she’d caused somebody this bright and genuine pain.

“But…” she pauses, considering his words, “is that even possible? The magicians of Alma Torran were like Magis; they could use the rukh freely—“ she pauses at his smile, and shakes her head. “Never mind. That’s not what this is about.”

A laugh. “I wonder if that’s true,” he says, and holds his hand out, palm facing the sky. “If dungeon users can be allowed to use magic, even if they cannot see the rukh, then why shouldn’t all people be taught to use magic? Why shouldn’t every magician be able to become a magi?”

And for a moment she swears she can see the rukh, golden birds, flapping their wings, as he releases them into the air.

But his ideas are too good to be true; there is little chance of a world that simple, that easy. “You’ve got some big ideas for such a tiny child,” she scoffs instead.

And instantly he pouts. “Hey! I’ve grown! I’m almost Alibaba’s hei—“

The voice dies in his throat instantly, as he realizes what he’s saying. Snuffed out like a candle, he’s struck dumb by his own grief.

It’s stark on his face. In his movements. Stiffly, he curls in on himself. Dark skin growing pallid, blue eyes deep with grief.

And Kougyoku knows she is not the only one who has lost, knows she is not the only one who wanders the night in search of a sun. Why else would they both be here, in the water, under forgotten stars?

Her heart aches with empathy.

“Aladdin,” she says, voice careful, and places a hand on his shoulder. She wants to ask if he is okay, if he has somebody to talk to, if he has cried his grief at all. But as he lifts his gaze, she can see the answer there; they are both frail and weak, both children. And she can swim in the ocean of his grief, the deep blue night, for an eternity without finding a star to navigate by.

So instead she says “I know you’ve grown. I’m sorry.”

Aladdin's smile is soft and tremulous, and his fingers grasp hers briefly. Silent messages of gratitude that tie together like a spider’s web, easily broken if too much force is added to them, and so he does not speak.

When he lets go he is himself again. He shakes his head and rebalances in the water. “What I was trying to say is simply this; there is knowledge in the Kou empire about the nature of magoi, which is not taught at the Academy,” he says. “Knowledge that I thought a princess might hold, and since I'm especially curious about water magic—as that's the one I’ve always had trouble with…”

Aladdin trails off meaningfully, head cocked to the side in question.

The irony of their situation is not lost on her. “So, are you telling me,” she asks, finding a smirk for the first time, “that what you’re worst at, is water magic?”

His smile dims a little, irritation flashes. “That’s one way to put it."

It’s almost too easy to tease him then, her haughty laugh returning to her as an old friend would. “My dear, you’ve come to the right person, indeed.”

“There’s no need to rub it in!”

She smiles smugly, and leans closer, water pushing and pulling, so she can catch his eyes. “Is it that easy to poke your pride, Aladdin?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “I’m not telling you that.”

This time her laugh is genuine.

“Alright,” she says, lifting her arms so her hands are free of the garment. They reflect the light of the moon above them, and she frowns at the loss of her battlefield tan. It is a sign of beauty in the Kou Empire, but to Kougyoku it is nothing more than the evidence of how long her grief and shame have pulled her down, how long she has let her own weakness tie her up.

“Listen closely,” she says, navigating her hands. “Water is not like heat or strength magic. Water moves like the energy in our bodies, the energy of the very earth. Even the energy that moves between people."

As she explains she navigates a finger through the water in the pattern of the number eight, creating a small current. “Sometimes, it gets blocked or redirected,” she says, halting suddenly in a way that creates a whirlpool. “But as you can see that doesn’t stop it. Water is never motionless, and even if it is blocked it will slowly erode what is holding it back, until it can move on. Or find a different path.”

Aladdin nods along with her words, smile diminished as he listens, mind absorbing the knowledge.

“So… like this?” He asks, moving his hand in patterns, back and forth.

And Kougyoku frowns. She knows he’s used to simply casting spells, to creating where there is nothing, but unlike heat magic or strength magic, or creation magic, water magic depends on what is already there; whether it be in the air around them or in lakes and oceans. Water can be created from nothing, like all else, by the use of rukh or magoi, but it is rarely necessary.

“Not exactly,” she says. "Your movement is too strict. Let me show you,” she adds, and grabs his hand.

It doesn’t take long before he’s caught on to what she’s doing, but he still lets himself be dragged all the way to the edge of the basin and out of the water.

Kougyoku’s many layers of clothing are heavy against her limbs and there is soon a pool around her feet from all the water she’s dragged onto the broken tiles. She can feel them against her skin, warm from summer heat, and for once it makes her smile.

The heaviness of her robes is nothing new, and the presence of water still around her, in her hair, clinging to her limbs, is a comfort all on it’s own.

“You have to move your whole body,” she says, and steps into old martial arts patterns that she has not practiced for the last couple of months. Yet, her body remembers the fluid motions, the twist and turns of muscle, and another smile bends her lips as she concentrates.

She’s missed this.

Aladdin watches her soundlessly for a moment, eyes reading the motion of each muscle as she moves, and he soon places himself opposite her, so he can absorb the movement, adopt a dance that is not exactly like hers, but close, and mirrored.

It is not entirely the same, for he is not practiced in this type of martial art, does not have the years and years of experience, but it is close enough that when he’s caught on, and says “like this?” The rukh in the water easily answers his call, it moves easily with his body, around him and then her, answering both sides of the awkward dance they have entered.

* * *

Hakuryuu is not doing well.

He is no longer angry or vengeful, but he wanders the inner corridors of the palace like a ghost of himself, still alive, but nearly transparent.

Kougyoku is not unaware of this, has never not noticed, but she had not had the strength to truly pay attention. They had both been a ghost in their own bodies, passing by each other, yet feeling the same disappointment.

Pawns in Sinbad’s game. Dragged along by stirred up emotions that would not be denied. And the price? A shattered and divided country. The loss of a friend, a magi, brothers and sisters. Self-hatred.

There is no vengeance for self-hatred.

And the world loves Sinbad enough not to go against his wishes, so there would be too high a price to pay to go against him now.

They are still chained, there is no doubt about that.

And Kougyoku does not know how to help him. She is not Aladdin. She cannot talk him out of his own despair, cannot bring him peace and companionship. She does not have the courage.

So instead she watches him come and go, in the throne room, in the council rooms, in his own offices deep inside the library. She figures out his schedules and she figures out his duties, and she takes up what little of his work that she can; maths and figures, rewriting diplomatic drafts, letters for his bureaucrats taking care of their regions, because she’s always been the one best at that in their generation.

That’s why she’d been sent to Balbadd.

That’s why Kouen had trusted her.

Now she uses it, not in the hopes that it will gain her recognition for she deserves none of it, but that it will lighten the burden of the only brother she has left.

She cannot heal him, but perhaps this will break him a little less.

When she is not sneaking around behind her brother’s back, Kougyoku takes up her martial arts again. She may not be a metal vessel user anymore, or the commander of an army, but she is still part of a long line of warriors. It burns in her blood, and her night time practice sessions with Aladdin, which have turned to sparring matches, has reawakened memories in her she had forgotten.

White clothing she has worn for the past many months, but they have new meaning now that she is in trousers for practice. It frees her somewhat, the movement, the meditations, the sword heavy against her palms.

She feels lighter than she has in months, as she twirls and jumps, sword becoming an extension of her arm once more. Her muscles slowly build up once again and—

_CLANG!_

Her head whips up to see her brother standing there as he had once been.

There’s a small smile on his face and his hair is tied back, no longer in the style of an emperor but as she remembers him before the civil war; for once he is just Hakuryuu.

He’s leaning forwards, arm supporting his guan dao easily, staff following the length of his body. “May I join you, sister?”

And Kougyoku smiles, elated, as she steps back in a defensive stance so their weapons are no longer touching. “With pleasure.”

It is the first sign of true life she’s had from him in weeks, months, almost half a year since the civil war. His eyes spark with some of his old mischief as he blocks her attacks step by step. He is not mocking her in terms of skill; on the battlefield they are equals, have always been equals, even if her movements are fluid where his are disciplined.

Sword and guan dao meet in a silent conversation, a thank you and a vow to do better. To not carry their individual burdens alone anymore.

When they step away from their fight, labored breathing and sweat trickling down their faces, somebody claps.

Aladdin sits on the wooden fence of the training grounds, smiling as if there is nothing wrong with the world. “So that’s what you look like when you’re not holding back,” he says, and she isn’t sure he means her or Hakuryuu. Or both.

She crosses her arms, “are you complaining?”

“No. It’s refreshing.”

“It’s not like you don’t already know what it looks like when she’s using her full strength,” Hakuryuu adds.

There’s a ripple at his words, a reminder of their first meeting. Later animosities and arguments.

Kougyoku shifts her footing. “A fight I clearly won.”

“In your dreams,” Aladdin retorts. “You cheated.”

“All weapons are fair against a magi. There is no cheating against somebody with that much power.”

“You mean, a child with little understanding of how magic works.”

“ _You wrecked an entire courtyard!”_

 _“You nearly drowned us!_ ”

It’s Hakuryuu’s snorted laughter that breaks them from their angry glower, and they turn to him like children, demanding in one voice “ _What_?!”

“To me you both sound irresponsible,” he offers. “What kind of imperial emissary gets into a fight with a magi? And what kind of magi gets into a fight where people can get hurt?”

They pull back at his words, exchanging a look, both equally chastised.

Hakuryuu smirks. “I guess this means I won, in the end.”

Which starts a whole new argument.

Around them servants pass quietly, eyes seeing more than they ought. The imperial family is a holy entity, somebody not to be disturbed or touched, but that does not mean they are not gossiped about in the shadows. There is no such thing as true privacy in the inner palaces, and there never will be. But sometimes, it can be conjured with childish behavior and shenanigans that die when attention isn’t paid properly.

“Aladdin,” Hakuryuu says, sobering suddenly when he is sure they have become background noise. “I want to tell her.”

The magi’s smile falls instantly, and he glances at Kougyoku beside him. “Are you sure?”

“She can keep a secret.”

It’s a slap in the face, the sudden reminder. The trust. And Kougyoku takes a step back.

“Whatever it is, I probably don’t deserve to know,” she says, flower closing in on itself. Insecurity returning. “We can’t know for sure if…. If the djinn has really left me, after all.”

She wants to hate Sinbad. She does hate him. But there is no black fire burning her insides anymore. Her actions have been her own these past few months, but she had thought her decisions had been hers to make when she’d been under Zepar’s influence, too.

It’s a fear she will carry forever, that somebody is watching through her eyes, that they can hear what she hears. Control her words and her mind, and she will never—

The sudden thought occurs to her.

“Hakuryuu!” She says, turning to her brother fully. “I’ve been going through your papers. I’ve been checking our economy, writing to our bureaucrats. What if I’ve—"

“Kougyoku.”

The voice cuts through her sudden panic, calming and warm, and for the first time, when Aladdin places his hand on her shoulder, she realizes that they’re the same height. It’s a steadying thought.

“Look at me.”

She does.

“If you’ve been worrying about this all along, why didn’t you just tell me?” He murmurs.

“I—“

She wants to pull back, but there is a worry in his eyes that begs her hold still. _Don’t run_. 

His eyes are clear blue, like the sky, and there is nothing hidden in his gaze. No fake regard or humid warmth. Just concern. And when he touches her cheek it’s a solid gesture, one of comfort and companionship. There are no social hierarchies, no differences in stature.

The star of Solomon glows on his forehead suddenly, and she knows he sees her mind, her heart lies exposed suddenly.

It scares her. This kind of power scares her as much as Zepar’s power should have scared her.

She never wants to be a pawn in anybody’s game again.

Then Aladdin steps back, star vanishing from his forehead and he taps her on hers. “Stop being so scared,” he chastises her.

And Kougyoku pulls back, hand covering where he’d hit her. “How rude!” She complains. “I don’t care if you’re a magi. You can’t just hit a princess as you please.”

“I’ll do it again if I have to,” he retorts, pulling back in a stance she’d taught him.

Kougyoku’s hand glides automatically to her sword. “Like you’d ever get that close,” she taunts.

But they’re both smiling. Their taunts and jabs at each other these days are nothing more than a mimicry of their old habits, form without content, without animosity.

Hakuryuu taps his foot impatiently at their antics. “Well?”

“She’s clean,” Aladdin says, and then he rolls his eyes theatrically. “As I could have told her months ago.”

“Like I would have really asked you to mess around with my mind,” she snaps, crossing her arms. “So? What are you going to tell me?”

The two exchange a look, and Hakuryuu takes a deep breath. “There’s something you deserve to know, sister,” he says. His words are heavy with finality as he directs her to sit down.

They sit on either side of her, close enough that she can feel each of their shoulders against hers, a pack of misfits she had not expected ever to stick together. But who else is left? Who else is there to carry the burden of all those lives lost?

“I’m sorry to have left you in the dark so long,” Hakuryuu says, head bowed and voice low. Nobody can see them here, in the shadows, nobody can hear them. “But I did not know how to break it to you. Did not know, feared as you have feared, that some of Sinbad were left in you.”

The world feels colder at the very mention and she is happy for how closely they’re sitting now.

“There is also the fact that this knowledge puts you in peril of his wrath once more,” Aladdin admits. “If he ever gets wind of this, ever has any doubts concerning your innocence there is a chance he will seek you out to demand their location.”

_Their?_

A golden bird basks its wings as it settles alongside a black one, just out of her line of sight. It is hope and despair in equal measure. And she dares not lean on either, resting on spikes.

Her brother takes her hand. His is rough and large, but it does not seek to dwarf hers. Familial comfort she thought she had lost.

And then she realizes it is of flesh and blood. Not wood, as it had been for so long.

Kougyoku almost does not dare breathe.

“Hakuryuu… What happened to your hand?”

* * *

Her brothers are alive.

The thought gives her enough strength to smile at the world summits.

She did not think she had the willpower or the right to represent her country at these meetings. But Hakuryuu asks her to share his burden now, and so she does it. It feels like she’s spiting Sinbad even as she bows to him, chairman as he is, and announces their need for more financial support.

Her personal tormenter smiles and asks her what they will give in return. What the Kou empire possibly has left to bargain with, and she bows and feels helpless, yet powerful all at the same time.

 _We will never hand over our family_.

 _It will never enter the bargaining process_.

But family is one thing, and country is another. And if she is to keep their people alive she has to accept that free labour across borders will be implemented within the year. It will be an equal exchange, Sinbad advocates. Across all the allied nations. And we shall all grow together as a result.

Of course, it is another lie.

Everything has hinged on Kou’s military. Now that they have lost that people are starving and aimless. They will seek the wealth of other places, the vultures will sweep in and take over what is left.

They are facing a meek future.

And both she and Hakuryuu are powerless to stop it.

 _SLAM_!

The book closes suddenly and Kougyoku only just has time to remove herself so her nose doesn’t get chopped off by the heavy burden of the ledgers.

“Hey!”

“You’ve been pouring over those pages for the last hour,” Aladdin complains.

He’s grown again, abandoned his black Magnostadt robes entirely, and adopted the white of the Kou imperial family, though he’s mixed them with a style reminiscent of the desert nations until it is a preposterous robe showing too much skin.

It vaguely reminds her of the way the people of Alma Torran were dressed.

“That’s my job,” she retorts.

“And my job is to guide my king vessels so they do not stray from the path. Or work too hard.”

She pulls back at the words. Judal’s sneering smile shows up in her mind, unbidden. “I am _not_  a king vessel. And I am certainly not _your_ —“ 

“Yeah, you are,” he interjects, leaning over her table to hold her gaze, glaring. “I am a magi and you are a king vessel, whether you want to see it or not. A king vessel is not somebody who vields a weapon in their hands and marches off to war to conquer. A king vessel is a leader, who guides their people so they do not stray from the path, whatever that path may be. Can you really say that is not what you’re doing right now?”

“I —“ she opens and closes her mouth, nearly irritable at his words, unable to answer. Finally she pulls back, and rises so he is not towering over her so much. “Then why are you disturbing that, you dumb magi?”

It’s not quite admitting that he’s right, but his frown still trickles off his face at her words. An easy smile replaces it. “I thought I’d show you what you’re actually guiding,” he says.

He grabs her hand and guides her around the table.

“Wha— _Aladdin!_ ” 

“No.”

“But—“

“Nope.”

He leaves her to dress in simpler clothing that he’s somehow managed to get his hands on, cottons rather than silks, in so few layers she feels nearly naked in them.

“You’re so odd,” she complains, when she steps out of her inner chamber to find him sitting upside down in one of her chairs, head hanging from the seat.

He blinks at her, and conjures a small wind so he spins in the air with easy grace, landing on his feet. “Huh. You’re surprisingly thin.”

“Hey!”

With a laugh he steps closer, light on his feet, nearly floating. “But you’ve still got gold in your hair,” he murmurs.

“Of course, I do,” she scoffs. “It’s the imperial—“

“No can do,” he trills, hands deftly reaching over and pulling the pin out of her hair so it falls heavy around her shoulders. “What is the point in a disguise if you…”

“Give me that!” She snaps, not entirely noticing the way he trails off, or the way it’s too easy to snatch the golden pin from his hand. “This is not for you to touch.”

He blinks at her, blue eyes wide with innocent confusion. And she remembers that he does not know all of Kou’s traditions. The pin feels cool against her skin, and she flounders.

This is not the pin she’d received at fifteen as part of her initiation into adulthood, the one she’d received from her servant, Ka Koubun. This is one she had been given by her brother, Kouen, as a secondary gift, in case she could not wear her metal vessel or needed to give it away during an engagement ceremony. It is simpler, with blue sapphires mixed in with the traditional red gems of the imperial family; a dedication to her heritage and power.

In the end she simply holds up her hand expectantly. “Well. You better have something else prepared or I’m not going anywhere.”

Aladdin hesitates. His eyes are still fixed on her in confusion and she sighs.

“Come on, Aladdin,” she says. “All members of Kou society wear these. It shows our social status, and I am not yet old enough not to wear them, as Hakuei is.”

His mouth forms a tiny, silent “oh”, and he looks around for something, before sighing and pulling the piece of jewelry resembling his third eye from around his forehead.

In his hand it twits and changes until it is a simple silver hairband, a dragon coiling and coiling until it bites its own tail, tall like an emperor’s hairpiece, and a wooden hairpin with the ruby eye in the middle.

Kougyoku opens her mouth to protest this. It seems too personal.

“I won’t let you keep this,” he says, standing on tip toes to pull up her hair in twin loops. And this, too, is personal. He does not treat her with care, the way her servants do; he does not care for the Kou customs that state touching a member of the imperial family the wrong way equals treason, nor does he treat her as a glass vase as others of royal or imperial birth have. In his hands she is solid and human. To his touch she is real.

“It’s too precious to give away,” he says, when he falls back on his heels, smile in place.

Kougyoku gingerly reaches out and touches it. The ruby is warm to the touch, like a small fire. “Is it very old?”

“No,” he says, and she thinks he lies. “It’s brand new.”

* * *

It is not the first time she has gone outside the palace since the civil war, but her world had shrunk. It had shrunk to the palace grounds, to the air ships, the upgrade to Kou’s flying carpets, and to the halls of the former Parthevian royal family, which has become the centre of the world from which most of it is governed.

Or not governed.

Depending on which side you're on.

It is a tiny world. One that too easily forgets that it is artificial. Too perfect, decorated in gold and diamonds, gem stones that twinkle, and floors so clean you could eat off of them (though of course, you do not). It is a world with no true suffering, except the one caused by the emotional games of royalty, one that looks at hunger, famine, and war as represented on pieces of paper, from the height of a throne. So the details, the human lives, are forgotten.

Now Aladdin drags her back down to earth, and shows her what the world truly looks like.

It is not a pretty sight.

Kou is falling apart.

There is rebuilding going on in large parts of the capital, but it is nowhere near the bustling place it had once been. The part of the imperial army not yet disbanded, which works side by side with Sindrian military forces, and Reim support, is busy setting up houses created anew from the rubble, or feeding the hungry.

It should no longer be going on, Kougyoku thinks, looking at what is in essence an occupying force. It’s been too long and the country should be up and running again at this point.

Children run in the streets, barefooted, picking pockets, or begging for food, or playing. They are in rags, dirty orphans who are slowly beginning to forget the faces of their parents. 

She watches it all with a mounting despair, thinks of the ledgers she’s been pouring over, desperately trying to make their weak funds stretch far enough to feed the hungering parts of their country. She thinks of the slowly rising figures on refugees seeking outside their borders for work, for a new start. And she hates herself for being incapable of giving them what they need.

This is the despair Hakuryuu has still been carrying on his own.

This is what Alibaba must have felt in Balbadd, when he had so valiantly stood up to her.

Finally she understands what he must have felt.

A country is more than an abstract entity. It is more than honor. More than patriotism. More than its economy.

A country is its people.

And they too easily forget that.

“What are we going to do?”

Aladdin does not answer her.

It is not his place to answer her, only to guide her, and give her the possibility to answer the problem on her own.

He has his own battles to fight, and they are as important as hers.

They pass a building where people are occupied handing out food, bowls of thick soup, mostly made of rice. It is not enough to feed them, and the building is still being assembled around the long line of waiting, starving citizens with little purpose anymore, other than to survive.

Light catches on the bright red hair of a woman, as she realigns a pillar. She is dressed immaculately, her hair cut short, to the chin in a gesture of grief.

She pauses and nods when somebody speaks to her but remains mostly quiet. Her shoulders are straight and there is little in her demeanor to suggest that she has given up.

Kougyoku thinks that Morgiana is probably doing more for the people of her empire than she herself is. What a bitter thought, she thinks, and laughs humorlessly.

She needs to find a new path for her people to tread. And quickly.

* * *

It is not that she had forgotten about Morgiana.

How could she ever forget the quiet, nearly stoic Fanalis, that Alibaba had watched with aching respect and tender longing?

He had never spoken of her like that of course. She had always been amazing, strong and reliable. More centered than himself and a person to be admired rather than romanced.

That Kougyoku had recognized the same emotions in Morgiana’s reactions to the golden king vessel had made it so much more difficult to speak to her afterwards.

She had not been envious, or jealous of Morgiana, but the differences in their experiences had pained her too much. It is better, after all, to have loved and lost, than for your love to have caused your loss. But, perhaps, she realizes now, she had made another mistake in her relationships.

She is almost too exhausted, too hopeless, from another meeting with the international alliance, to set things into motion, but finally she sends an invitation to her brother, and to Morgiana, and to Aladdin, for them all to sup together.

Kougyoku doesn’t know how things will turn out, is almost expecting a quiet, awkward affair with how distant they have been from one another. But instead she finds warm company and cheerful conversation, companionship to be treasured. She almost forgets the terrible image of Sinbad towering over her, King of the world, with her country’s fate in his cruel hand.

Almost.

Later that week Morgiana seeks her out.

She doesn’t know how she’s been found out; she is sitting so far into the maze of the library that even the servants have given up on finding her. It is far into the evening, the candles flickering on their stems, having eaten almost all their oil, but Kougyoku barely notices.

A cup of tea is placed on an empty part of her desk and she looks up in surprise to see the fanalis woman standing across from her.

“How are you doing?” She asks quietly.

She’s got the Chishan dialect, not too different from Alibaba’s Balbadd one and it almost makes Kougyoku smile, nostaligia warm in her veins. “I am… not unhappy, personally,” she admits.

She’s always been so bad at communicating with others, and especially other women make her uncomfortable. They left her alone in the harem for all those years, abandoning the bastard child of a city whore to grow up neglected and starved for attention.

She is not bitter.

But fear will still, at times, claw in her veins.

“You wear the same haunted expression as Hakuryuu now,” says Morgiana.

The personal manner of address, of naming their emperor, does not escape Kougyoku, and she wonders, not for the first time, exactly how close they are. There has always been something warm between them, but she is not entirely sure it is love.

Yet, something in Morgiana’s honest manner renders Kougyoku incapable of being anything else in return. “We are tied, hand and foot, by the International Alliance,” she admits. “And neither of us can see any way to break those ties.”

Empathy, personal understanding, is clear in Morgiana’s expression as she sits down beside Kougyoku, hand touching her shoulder in something akin to sisterly comfort. “Do not let him chain you forever,” she says. “Mental chains are so much more difficult to break, but it is not impossible.”

Fanalis often start their lives as slaves, and the design of her household vessel tells a story of just that sort of existence. But Morgiana has always moved as a free individual, rarely doing what anybody else tells her to. She does not adhere to the rules of this place, nor of any other, and perhaps that is what Alibaba had respected most of all in her.

Perhaps that is why he had never acted on his love for her.

Because too often love ties you up, and never lets you go.

“Thank you,” she whispers, voice quivering. And she finds that she means it.

They talk for a while, about things neither has dared speak of for months, finds solace in what they have lost, and what little hope there is for the future. And they cry, as neither has dared cry in the company of others for too long.

It is an odd sort of bond, one of emotion and sisterhood that Kougyoku has never experienced before. It is comforting and warm, and she feels stronger again, strong enough to go to bed and wake from dreams rather than nightmares.

As the days pass Morgiana seeks her out after evening meals, or before bedtime. She becomes Kougyoku's eyes and ears in town, her confidante for some, but not all, of her political woes. And in return she listens to the Fanalis's long term plans, her grief still too real to move her from the purposes her friends has left behind. She listens to dreams and tales of a different land, a world beyond the great rift that only Fanalis can reach, and while she is loathe to lose another, she dreams for Morgiana, and she promises whatever aide she can give when the time comes.

She thinks she has gained a new friend.

* * *

It becomes apparent to her that Aladdin and Hakuryuu are plotting something the day she is handed a letter form Sinbad.

She is careful not to brush fingers with him when she has to take it.

“It is a summons,” Hakuryuu says when he has skimmed the lines later that evening. “For all Magi. They are to swear allegiance to the International Alliance.”

Morgiana snots softly, and Kougyoku agrees.

“All Magi?” She repeats, incredulous. “Titus is in Reim; they are not part of the International Alliance and who knows where Yunan is. Judal is…”

Her voice dies and she looks away, hands grasping each other, hidden under her sleeves. She does not like this. “What is this?” She whispers.

To her left Aladdin shifts and catches Hakuryuu’s look. Their emperor shakes his head, mouth setting. “I can’t let you go, Aladdin, you know that. He knows I won’t let you go there.”

“It might be a good chance to—" the Magi begins, but Hakuryuu shakes his head again.

“We are not ready. There is too much yet to be done,” he says, finality in his voice. He almost looks like an emperor for once, baby fat gone and grim experience written into the lines around his eyes. There is nothing left to say.

Aladdin sighs and his posture looks a little more … tired. Like he’s given up. “I guess you’re right,” he says. “We don’t even have a sure location anyway.”

A nod.

There is apology in his expression when he turns to Kougyoku. “I hope we can rely on you to give him the denial.”

She tries not to imagine what will happen, but she nods grimly anyway. Under the table both Morgiana and Aladdin take one of her hands each and it is a comfort, a reminder that he cannot punish her for this. That they cannot punish Kou for Aladdin using his own free will.

“You cannot ask a chooser of kings to swear allegiance to an alliance that rejects the idea of king vessels,” she says, alone on the council floor for the first time in ages. This is her arena; this is what she’s always been good at. Diplomacy. “And just as Kou does not presume any power over the Magi of Alma Torran, neither do we presume the power to hand him over now to the International Alliance. Instead we choose to support his choice to stay a neutral party in all politics, much like the Magi Yunan has always done.”

It is her first real victory in a long time.

When Sinbad calls out to her later, as she is about to board her airship, her guards intercept.

“I beg you understand, m’lord,” she says, as she turns, halfway up the stairs, trembling hands hidden under the folds of her sleeves. Her smile is set. “Why I would not wish to speak with you under semi-private circumstances such as these.”

Behind him Ja’far looks stricken, but Sinbad smiles his superior smile and takes a step back. “As you wish, princess,” he says, bowing. “Have a safe trip back to Kou.”

Her smile is a grimace, but he cannot see that. “Thank you.”

It is a battle all on its own to walk back up the steps to the airship. Her feet tremble and the world feels unsteady around her, threatening to shatter again.

As soon as the ship leaves the ground she falls to her knees inside the private chamber prepared for her travels. He’ll retaliate; she can feel it in her bones. Kougyoku closes her eyes painfully and grips the collar of her robes over her tripping heart.

“What do we do…?”

It doesn’t feel like a victory anymore.

“It’s going to be fine.”

Warm fingers grasp her hand and gently pries it from her clothes. They are no longer whispy or frail, but hold her hand in a supporting grip and when she looks up Aladdin is smiling at her.

He’s wearing the standard uniform of the Parthevia empire and looking much older than he’s supposed to. Almost her age. It’s a shock, a punch in the gut, and she blinks in confusion up at him.

“Wha…”

“Ah,” he mutters, fingers releasing hers to scratch the back of his neck, glamour vanishing. “Sorry for sneaking onto your ship, Kougyoku.”

She splutters and pulls back. “Are you _insane_?!” She demands. “I came here to— to—“ to what? “— to _protect you_ and you still show up in Parthevia?!” 

He laughs and it’s so fearless. Like he’s actually happy he did it. “Have you no shame,” she snaps, pushing at his shoulder in frustration. “Do you realize what Sinbad is going to do with you if he gets his hands on you?”

She wants to strangle him. To shake him until he sees sense, but he just keeps smiling, keeps looking too pleased with himself, and she doesn’t know what to do with him.

“Oh, I have a pretty good idea of what he’s going to do with me,” he says, and his smile diminishes a little. But there is confidence there, like he doesn’t care. “Of course, he’d have to catch me first. And now I have the information we’re looking for so if all goes well there’s no chance that will happen.”

Kougyoku sits back on her haunches and frowns at him, panic and worry all diminished into something calmer. His confidence is contagious, but she still has no idea what they’re planning.

“What is going on, Aladdin?”

“Hm?” He glances at her, blue eyes wide like the ocean. There is suddenly distance there, freedom she does not know or understand. “More importantly. Are you okay, Kougyoku?”

She wonders bitterly if this is simply because they don’t want to burden her with their plans or if they do not yet trust her. They’ve already given too much away to keep it quiet, and she's aware that it’s somewhat on purpose that they have let hints slip, so she’s going to have to trust them to come clean when the time is right.

“It’s weird,” she says, sighing. Then she smiles at him. “I know he isn’t going to let it go just like that. But I’m not afraid of him right now.”

There’s a pause as he looks at her, takes in her smile, and then he takes a slow breath. “Does that mean… you feel comfortable around me, Kougyoku?”

His eyes are dancing.

She scoffs and straightens herself. “You’re still a little too young, don’t you think?” She says haughtily, and then sticks her tongue out at him.

Quickly, getting to her feet, she dusts off her robes and rubs her cheeks. “Now,” she says. “On to the next order of business.”

“Hm?”

Aladdin blinks up at her, as if he’s been momentarily stunned. His eyes are wide and childish, and the contrast to his glamour stuns her, as well.

A part of her wishes he was older.

Though at the same time she thinks he’s growing too quickly.

“There’s somewhere I want to go. And you’re going to take me.”

* * *

The cool air is a relief to her after so long.

The white magic carpet is not as steady as the ones the imperial officials used to employ. It flaps unsteadily in the wind, tiny and inconspicuous over the sea. But there is freedom in its movement, a reminder of flying that she thought she'd never have the privilege of experiencing again; wind in her hair and voice drowned out in its rush.

It is cold up here, and the wind cuts her skin in a way it had been incapable of in her Djinn form, but she relishes it, joyfully, childishly sticking out her tongue when Aladdin mutely offers to slow down and move lower.

"I was asking for myself," he complains when they've landed, teeth still clattering and hands moving hectically up and down his bare arms.

"This is why you ought to wear more layers," Kougyoku replies stiffly.

The island is small, the miniature habour abandoned when no supplies come in. If you can even call it a habour; it looks as if they'd have to load the materials Hakuryuu send to the island onto barges to get them close enough to the island. A bird sings in a nearby palm tree and her shoes dig undiplomatically into the sand.

What is she going to find here, Kougyoku wonders nervously. Defeated men? Skeletons? Hakuryuu had warned her that not even he knows what's become of her brothers; the officers he's employed to transfer the foods and goods had been ordered to leave it on the side of the island lying opposite the village so they would not come into contact with her brothers. And he has not managed to visit either.

Beside her Aladdin considers his flying carpet pensively and Kougyoku softens at the way his hands still tremble, the uncompromising effects of cool air against desert skin.

"Why don't you just use heat magic to warm yourself up?" she asks. Her fingers lightly rest against his shoulder, a sign of comfort she's not shown often, and the chill breaks against the heat of her fingers.

There's a skip in Aladdin's movement, and he draws in a breath, shoulders rolling back. His eyes, bright and blue, starry with awe, glance at her hand and then back up at her. "I didn't know you could do that."

"I don't actually know the formula for it," she admits. "But Judal used to use it during winter. He always refused to wear more layers no matter how cold it got, saying a magi can't bow to the surroundings he command."

She lifts her hand to her lips to stifle a giggle at a memory of a disgruntled Judal with a cold, nostalgic joy fresh in her veins. The pain is still there, but it is becoming a bittersweet scar, and it no longer cripples her.

Beside her Aladdin shifts uncomfortably and grabs her free hand. There is guilt in the lines of his fallen shoulders and his eyes are once again that deep blue sea of sorrow. "I'm sorry," he says, edge to his voice.

She hums in question, joy leaving her as quickly as it had come. Aladdin is usually calm, assured, but his muscles are tightening now and though he hides it well she can see his apprehension, wonders if he's trying not to flee. "Why?" She murmurs, hand gripping his.

"I," he begins, and then his eyes shoot to the ground, the timidity of a child returning to him so quickly it startles her. "I am the reason he's not here anymore; I'm the one who exiled him."

She knows this. Who else but a magi could kill a magi? The apology would have infuriated her months ago; he'd stolen one of her most precious friends from her, the second person to ever acknowledge her. But she has accepted the loss, has overcome the pain. And right now Aladdin is a precious person in her life, one she would not lose because of old grief.

"Aladdin," she says, and her fingers trace his chin, a gentle caress urging him to look her in the eyes. Stark vulnerability and guilt is a terrifying expression on his face and her heart aches for him. "We both know the kind of person Judal is, and we both know that in that kind of battle there often isn't a choice. You have nothing to apologise to me for, but if you need it I do offer my forgiveness."

He'd saved her.

Aladdin might not have dragged her out of that pool, but he'd provoked her enough to find the strength to climb out on her own.

Now it's her turn to do the same for him.

"Thank you," he murmurs, hand closing around the one of hers still resting on his cheek. There is no chill left, and for a moment she wonders if he'll burn her. But he smiles this silly smile of relief and it's too easy to return it.

Giddy and light, they're laughing on a beach in the middle of nowhere, sun shining brightly above them, wind pickicking at their robes suddenly so it feels like they're falling, free of restraint and sorrow. Finally.

A pink bird takes flight somewhere close by, singing in harmony with the world, but Kougyoku barely sees it.

That's how Kouha finds them, hands clasped, still laughing.

"Well, this is a surprise," he says, blowing his fringe out of his eyes, and resting a hand on his hip.

Kougyoku's head whips round at the sight, laughter forgotten immediately.

Her brother, alive, cocks his head to the side to study them.  _He's_ _alive_. His royal gowns have been replaced for robes more reminiscent of the Reim style, the weather too hot to allow anything else. His skin is darkening under the ministrations of the sun and his hair, longer than ever, glows as it reflects the light. 

"Kouha!"

She's running towards him on the sandy beach before she knows it, her brother, the boy that was supposed to have been her twin, alive. Tears stream down her cheeks. The relief is almost painful, so overwhelming, she can barely think, and she only remembers proper etiquette in the last moment, skidding to a halt right in front of him.

"Ah. A-Apologies, broth—"

Kougyoku doesn't get any further before her brother has discarded all social propriety and swept her up into a hug.

He's sweaty and grimy, nothing like the clean boy she grew up with in the palace, the boy who'd experimented with cosmetics and fashion designs with her until they'd perfected the art. He's wyry and strong, like a lance. Powerful in a way she doesn't recognise. But he's still her brother, still Kouha, warm and present and she loves him for it.

"I'm so glad you're alive," she whispers, fingers catching on tangles in his long hair.

He laughs into her ear. "How could I die when my sister risked her life to keep me safe on the battlefield?"

Kouha pushes her gently away to smile at her, warm familiarity almost too much.

Kougyoku feels her eyes burn again.

"But..." She wonders if the guilt will ever fully leave her. "It's—"

"That reminds me," he cuts her off with a look. "Why are you here?"

"It was about time," Aladdin says, placing a hand on Kougyoku's back. "And I want to speak with Kouen."

Kougyoku and Kouha exchange a look.

"Alright," her brother says. "It's this way."

The road gets a little easier as they step into the shadow of the forest, path solidifying beneath their feet and shade shielding them from the sun's harsh judgement.

As they walk Kouha explains what had happened after the civil war; about Kouen's decision to step down, the way he'd exchanged limbs with Hakuryuu, and the way the new emperor had created substitutes for their execution, incapable of seeing his siblings dead in the end. They had never truly been his target, after all.

He doesn't talk much of the life on the island, but he holds himself more relaxed, now that they are outside court, now that he has little political responsibility to carry.

"We do get visitors occasionally," he says cryptically, and then smiles at his sister. "So we're not all cut off from the world. And with the time of peace Sinbad had forced upon the world, life would be boring no matter where we are.

"Of course," he adds, "it must have been far from sunshine and rainbows for you, sister..."

This is when they step out from the forest and find themselves face to face with a small village overshadowed by a huge floating island. Clusters of vines fall from a rocky side, drawing the eye all the way up what looks like a mountain floating upside-down in the sky. From the angle they can’t see the flat plateau at the top, but spires and towers stick up here and there, signs of civilisation. Both Kougyoku and Aladdin gape up at it, incredulous at the sight.

"Oh, yeah," Kouha deadpans. "I'd forgotten to warn you; the King of Kina is visiting. He brought his country."

The Kinans had sided with Hakuryuu during the civil war, but vanished quickly thereafter as the King did not want to be swept up in Sinbad’s new world. Yamato Takeruhiko, another dungeon conqueror, had taken his djinn with him in the vanishing act, as one of the few that had managed to keep it.

It’s not entirely an odd place to find them, but given their allegiance with Hakuryuu it’s not where Kougyoku would expect them to be.

Not that their king has ever been entirely predictable.

Down in the valley they are first met by Koumei. Just like Kouha her older brother has adopted what seems to be the local way of dressing, an even more foreign display. Though, he is still very much the same, greeting them with reserved warmth.

“Kouen is in a meeting with King Yamato,” he announces somewhat formally. He clearly has more to say on the matter, but before he can continue Aladdin beams.

“Great. I’ll just go disturb them then,” he says, and vanishes in the direction Koumei had directed.

“What is he doing here?”

Kougyoku hides a smile of amusement with her sleeve. “I made him take me,” is all she says, though she’s beginning to wonder if she is perhaps the one tagging along.

A sigh of resignation and a laugh from Kouha, and her brothers escort her to another hut for tea.

“Hakuryuu promised me the palatial tea we used to drink,” Koumei laments as he pours green tea for them. “But he has yet to manage to smuggle it in with the other supplies.”

“I’ll see if I can’t help to make that a reality,” Kougyoku says, thanking him for the cup as he pushes it towards her.

The hut is full of papers; mathematical calculations and old texts. It looks more like Kouen’s offices back home, than Koumei’s. Their esteemed elder brother had always had less appreciation order than the second eldest.

“Ah, yes,” Koumei says, when he notices her looking around. “This place is our common research lab. We cannot do much without supplies, but—“ an elegant shrug of his shoulders “—old habits die hard.”

Kougyoku bows her head. She is the one who has robbed them of their life, their goals and the products of their hard work. She has nothing to say to them now, nothing that can make up for it. She has taken too much.

“How are you?”

Her head whips up.

Koumei and Kouha are both watching her from the opposite side of the table. This is not a question she has ever been asked, except maybe by Morgiana or Alibaba. Familial care has never been something she’d been shown; there are other ways the Kou imperial children show respect and fondness for one another, but it is in the small, in gestures, always just subtle enough for others not to pick up on, and never, never with words.

“I—“ she tightens her grip on her mug of tea.

What can she say?

She is doing well. Is she?

What does that say? Has she profited from her brothers’s exile?

Of course, she has. She should have been exiled with them. She should not have been rewarded with power.

“After what Sinbad did to you,” Koumei begins, “we’ve been worried about your welfare. The imperial court is still so tightly guarded that news cannot travel to the city, and certainly not to this remote island. Hakuryuu dares not send us reports, and it is for the best, but…”

She glances up through her fringe just in time to catch her brothers exchanging looks.

“The burden placed on your shoulders,” Kouha continues. “Must be all the heavier with the outcome of the civil war. He should never have been allowed that close.”

His eyes flash briefly with old battlefield rage and Kougyoku pulls back. They _are_ angry with her. Of course they are, how could they not be? She betrayed them. 

“I’m sorry!” She draws back from the table as quickly as she can, tears threatening to spill again. Her forehead falls against the wooden floor and her eyes swims, barely capable of seeing the raw wood-work right in front of her. Unforgiving. Salt-water darkens small circles of the dry surface. “I betrayed you! I am the cause of all this misery that has befallen our family. I am the one who ought to be here, locked away for eternity.”

A sob threatens to spill over and she clenches her teeth painfully to keep it in. She has already spoken too much, though she has no right to a voice. She has no right to say anything, and doing so only forces their hand to speak, when they ought to punish her at any pace they see fit.

“No, Kougyoku,” Koumei murmurs, warm hand resting solidly on her shoulder. “You are not to blame. You were never to blame.”

His fingers spread over her shoulder blade, moving gently across her back so he can nudge her shoulder up. “Raise your head, sister.”

They’re both watching her with concern, kneeling at the same level as her. _Sister_. 

She has never felt their equal, and she certainly doesn’t deserve it now, but there is no other choice.

And so she lifts her head.

“We should have realised it,” Kouha tells her. “We should have paid better attention to what was happening, should have made sure nothing had happened to you when you were away instead of blindly trusting that man.”

“Yes,” Koumei agrees. “We have done wrong by you, sister. So it is us who will apologize to you."

To her shock the two men bow their heads to her, foreheads resting against the floor, hands folded in front of them in perfect triangles. Her breath catches in her throat and Kougyoku’s heart tightens in her chest, the pain nearly unbearable.

Tears stream down her cheeks silently and yet she cannot look away. She cannot avert her eyes from the gesture of her brothers. The brothers she loves dearly.

It was not their responsibility to take care of her, or to save her. Just as it was not Aladdin’s or Hakuryuu’s. And she knows that if the Djinn had been discovered they would have done a valiant effort to try to remove it, but in the mean time her reputation would have been ruined, she would have lost any contact with her family, any influence she might have had.

Perhaps that is why Alibaba had done nothing, perhaps he had taken that chance for the sake of her comfort as her friend, rather than think of the Kou empire as a whole.

What this gesture really tells her, is that Sinbad had forced all their hands, and of her brothers’ love for her, their regret that they has failed her along with their country.

“Thank you,” she whispers, lifting her sleeve to her face to hide her half-smile, half-grimace of pain and grief.

Koumei and Kouha lift their heads and share a look.

“Thank you for your hard work, sister,” the former says, resting a hand on her shoulder.

And another burden falls from her shoulders as she cries.

* * *

“About time,” Kouen says when they step into the hut he, Yamato and Aladdin are seated in.

Hakuryuu’s wooden limbs protrude from his shoulder and hip, an unforgiving reminder of what their eldest brother has sacrificed, of what Alibaba had done to her family. What they have all done to each other.

“These meetings are not private to family,” he continues irritably. “Next time I want to see you all join us. Not just the magi.”

Aladdin grins from where he’s seated. “I’m sure Lady Kougyoku had some catching up to do with her brothers,” he offers innocently.

To which Kouen replies with a poisonous glare. “And am I not her brother as well?” He turns his gaze to Kougyoku then. “I had Hakuryuu’s assurances that you would not fall after what _that man_  did to you, but given how long it took you to get here, I’m starting to wonder if he has aided you at all.” 

And this is so like Kouen, this gruff, odd way of expressing concern, that Kougyoku almost laughs. It is such a relief that he has not changed, that he is still alive, this man who dragged her out of isolation when the harem had left her to herself. Alone in the darkness.

She knows, of course, what he will expect to hear now. “I apologize for the delay in this visit,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “But our country is still in shambles, so all my energy has been focused purely on seeing to our people’s wellbeing. As for His Imperial Majesty, his concerns are for the many, not for a lone sister led astray and I would never burden him with my recovery when I have been able to find my way back by my own strength.”

It is not an entire truth, but when she glances at Aladdin he’s nodding.

Kouen, on the other hand, snorts softly, but there is approval in his voice when he says “as it should be, then." He shifts in his seat on the floor, shoulders rolling back into the position of the general he had once been. “Aladdin has informed me of the state of the Kou empire and your efforts to keep it afloat in spite of this International Alliance interfering with our laws. There is little I can do from here, save offer you tidings of more bad news traveling your way.”

Kougyoku takes a deep unsteadying breath and mentally prepares herself for whatever Kouen has to tell her. “Please. Whatever information you have…”

Kouen gestures to King Yamato who gets to his feet to bow to her. “It is a _pleasure_ to finally meet you in person, your Imperial Highness,” he says as he lifts his head. He smiles, eyes dancing, and it is a smile she knows a little too well; the flattery of men of power, interest in their veins as they lay their gaze on a woman of beauty, of influence. “Your reputation precedes you, and may I say you are every bit and more the—“ 

Yamato lets out a yowl of pain as Kouha hits him over the head. “What was that for?” He demands, tears springing to his eyes. He’s gripping the point of impact in a manner that almost reminds her of Alibaba.

“Our sister is a general of the Kou Empire,” Kouha says, eyes flashing. “She is a trained warrior of the Ren family, a king vessel, and the next in line of succession after Emperor Hakuryuu—“

Kougyoku smiles as they continue to argue. “Your majesty,” she says, and her voice, though soft, cuts the atmosphere like a knife. When he turns to look at her again her smile falls into the mask she wears for diplomacy. “I appreciate your compliments, and the aid you have offered my family. But, as my brother has already stated, I am a warrior of the Ren dynasty as much as any other man of this family and I demand the same respect offered to them without question.”

She has to remind herself that Kina has always been a vassal state of Kou, that she is worthy of what she demands now for the first time; that she should have had it without question.

The intrigue does not leave his gaze as Yamato bows his head. “Of course, Your Grace,” he says. “My sincerest apologies."

“Now,” she says, sitting down beside Aladdin and leaning back in her seat in a gesture of confident superiority. “Report.”

He grins. “Man, I feel like a soldier in my father’s army again,” he says, and in a fluid motion sits down, legs crossed in the floor in front of her. He does not face Kouen as he gives his report, but Kougyoku.

Yamato places a fist into his open palm and bows to her, eyes closed in formal recognition of her power. “Your Imperial Highness, I bring grave tidings from the outskirts of your vast empire,” he says.

The frivolous air that had permeated his movements and actions fall from his shoulders and reveals a seriousness to his character she ought to have expected from a king vessel. It suits the gravity of his words, a message she had not expected, but knows she should have.

Rebellions are taking hold in some of the older areas, the original country of Kou; a small nation, one that had spread quickly with military might. According to Yamato they are many, small and far between, but given time they will meet and merge into a real threat.

“They do not recognize Hakuryuu’s authority and are seeking revenge for Kouen and his brothers,” he finishes.

The heat in the hut ought to be stifling, but Kougyoku shivers with cold at his news. Fear runs down her spine as she sits, rigid, in front of this unexpected messenger of all too possible tidings.

She opens her mouth, and then closes it again to consider it.

This ought to be the hotspot of Hakuryuu’s supporters; it is his father and his brothers that had originally united the three nations, making the country of Kou into an Empire. So why is it happening there? If anything, recognition of her own line should have come from the army, or not at all. In general, her countrymen and armies have always stayed loyal to the family, the dynasty, not just the person on the throne, unless they are formidable enough to individually inspire the masses, as her brother and uncle had been capable of.

That was why Kouen should have been Emperor. Not Gyokuen.

So why is this happening?

“There’s too much pride in the people of the Kou empire to pull a stunt like this,” Kouha mutters.

“But,” Kougyoku says, considering her words, “our pride always stemmed from our military. Which we have now lost. Our people is lost as a result, so predicting their actions based on a time of greatness, a reality that no longer exists, may be a fatal mistake. One Hakuryuu and I have already committed.”

“A people never changes that quickly,” Koumei says, shaking his head. “Though, the loss of the source of their pride may lead that sense of pride astray.”

Kouha sighs. “I’ve never had much patience for this side of politics. That’s why I left it to you people. What exactly does this mean?”

“It means,” Kougyoku says, “that somebody has been directing our people to act with chaos in their hearts when they were the most vulnerable. And that we have no army to stop them.”

She knows exactly who would do such a thing. She had expected nothing less from him, though she had thought he had had no reason to commit such an atrocity until today.

But perhaps she has underestimated Sinbad; he is not the type to act on a personal agenda.

Kougyoku looks to Kouen. “The easiest way to solve this is to bring you back, brother,” she says. “To show our people that you approve of and support the new emperor.”

It’s a useless hope, as she had already known.

Kouen shakes his head. “Hakuryuu’s reign, and your succession if he has no children, is entirely dependent on the illegitimacy of mine. If it is revealed that I am still alive then you will have lied to your people,” he says. “If that were to happen they would never support you again.”

In other words, bringing Kouen back would rip their country apart.

“You’re going to have to do right by your people,” he continues, “with your own strength.”

Kougyoku swallows a lump in her throat.

She’s really not cut out for this, she thinks miserably.

But Kouen smiles at her. “It’s about time you did that, Your Grace.”

* * *

A black shadow settles over the Imperial palace. 

Reports of raides in the east begin to clutter Hakuryuu's desk, reports of burnt villages and destroyed crops, of famines in other areas and mass migration.

Hakuryuu sits his throne with heavy shoulders, black birds at his side and frustration impossible to remove from the lines of his face, though he tries valiantly.

Aladdin leaves the palace with more and more frequency; he's sworn to not use his magic for any one country, but the many reports of famine at the wrong time of the year draw him to their western borders. And when he returns it is with grim news.

"It's another type of rebellion," he tells Kougyoku.

A cloud passes over the moon above them and it is only the lights from the palace illuminating the pool and its surroundings. He'd found her there, as he is so prone to doing, with her feet in the basin and her eyes fixed on her brother's residential halls.

She nods at his words, eyes not straying. "That close to Magnostadt's borders there are more magic users settled," she says. "Famines are an easy way to pressure the empire."

She thinks of Sinbad, standing so far above her as she'd pleaded for the Alliance's aide in dealing with the rebellions.

"There is nothing we can do," he says, looking genuinely regretful. "No member of the alliance has an army anymore. The Kou Empire will need to find a different way to deal with its rebellions.

"Perhaps," he adds, voice halting her in her retreat from the dais, "you ought to listen to their claims. The people usually know what they want."

His smile is still open and sympathetic, still an offer of help, but it is nauseatingly false.  _He knows_ , Kougyoku thinks so the world swims. _He knows about my brothers._  

"Did you manage to speak with them?" She asks Aladdin, glancing at him.

His expression is grave. There is no easy way to give bad news, but at least he does not try to lighten the mood with a smile. "Yes."

"And?"

He hums and makes small waves with his bare feet. "What they ask is not impossible," he says cryptically.

Kougyoku scoffs at his words and he glances over at her, eyes wide.

"What?"

"You're impossible," she says. She reaches up to ruffle his already messy mop of hair. "Don't worry. It's not your responsibility to make these decisions."

It's surprisingly soft, his hair, and she wonders if it's all the wind that has weathered it down. He doesn't fight her ministrations, but just lowers his head.

When she pauses, hand coming to rest on his shoulder he glances up and his eyes are dancing.

"Thank you for your help, Aladdin," she says, smiling at him. "But it's time Hakuryuu and I did what we're supposed to for our country."

Two birds, one pink and one gold, settle alongside a black one, ruffling their feathers, and the black bird retreats a step.

Beside her Aladdin finds a grin. "You're actually beginning to sound like a queen."

She scoffs at the teasing lilt to his voice. "You just worry about your own plans, okay?"

His smirk widens into a proper smile and he nudges her shoulder. "what? Are you curious?"

"Of course," she says, lifting her nose in the air. "You're so reckless I can't help but worry."

"Hey! I'm not the only one!"

Kougyoku laughs. "It takes one to know one!"

And beside her Aladdin watches her pensively, gaze not straying from her smile or her joy.

* * *

“I’m stepping down.”

Kougyoku opens her mouth and closes it again.

It's been a couple of weeks since she’d visited her brothers on the island and the rebellions have escalated, finally releasing demands, hatred and dissatisfaction with their country clear in their every word, the tones of their voices matched to louder and louder messages that can no longer be ignored.

So she can’t even ask why. She can’t demand an explanation.

Because she knows exactly why he’s doing it.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Hakuryuu shifts on his pillow, chin coming to rest in his palm as he leans a little forwards.

They’re sitting in his private chambers, work divided between them as has become custom. Sunlight shifts in and out of his window, a coming storm pushing clouds across the sky.

“My successor is quite capable,” he says, and she wonders if he’s amused with her question. “I think I can leave our country in her hands with no regrets.”

Kougyoku’s cheeks flush.

“I doubt you’re right,” she says. “But if it is what you wish there is little I can do to change your mind.”

“That’s right,” he says, nodding.

He’s so stubborn. Ever mutable in his goals, Hakuryuu wasn’t made to sit still, but he knows what he wants, always will, and he charges towards it with steady steps, a beating heart that has learnt when to be patient and when to act.

She doubts he ever wanted the throne to begin with; he’d been grieving and he’d wanted answers. And being as close to the murderer of his family as he’d been, without ever being able to touch her, it’s no wonder that grief had turned to hatred.

Kougyoku can emphasize with the sentiment.

“What are you going to do from now on, then?”

Hakuryuu hums under his breath and gathers his papers. “You know that Aladdin, Morgiana and I have been plotting something, don’t you, sister?” A sly look, a smirk. Like he’s testing her.

Kougyoku blows her fringe out of her eyes and crosses her arms. “How could I not with all the hints you’ve been throwing around?”

A laugh. “Sorry it’s taken so long to come clean.”

It requires a great effort to shrug her shoulders, to seem nonchalant. Being kept out of the loop like this hadn’t felt comfortable, but she’d accepted that they would tell her when the time was right.

What he tells her, of Aladdin’s origins, of Alma Torran and the Sacred Palace is not all news to her. She’d been at the summit, had heard Aladdin’s words and seen the memories of his mother so she knows. It’s difficult to forget something like that.

And with her opinion of Sinbad it is not difficult to believe that Sinbad is out to get his hands on the powers of the Sacred Palace, either. Just like Hakuryuu he is not the type of man who enjoys sitting still on the seat he’s created for himself, but the way the two create their goals is widely different. While Hakuryuu looks to what is necessary, what he needs to do for his peace of mind, Sinbad looks to an ever higher mountain, to the next top to reach.

And now that he’s become King there is little else he can do. There is no higher summit in this world.

“How greedy.”

Her brother nods solemnly in agreement.

“So, what’s your plan?” She demands. “You’re going to stop him, right?”

A flash of a smile. “Well, stopping him is easy,” he says. “Since the key to the Sacred Palace is Solomon’s Wisdom. And the only one who can use that is Aladdin.”

“Oh.”

Which must have been why Sinbad had tried to gain access to Aladdin with the power of the International Alliance. Many voices speaking together can gain a lot, as he has already proven.

“Oh!” She says again. “That’s why he’s targeting us!”

Hakuryuu blinks. “What?”

“You must have seen it too,” she says, producing a map from a pile of books. As she speaks she draws lines from country to country with her finger, pointing out the places of attack. “Our financial situation. The rebellions sprouting up everywhere. The mass migration. He’s placed us in an unfair situation that we can’t get out of because he has most of the international community behind him.

“And if he can rip our country apart, the same country currently harbouring the last piece he needs to gain access to his next goal, which he cannot actually touch because the International Alliance and his reputation actually protect us in that regard. Then he can get his hands on Aladdin.”

She places her open palm against the map with finality, using it to lean closer to her brother.  “You need to be on the move,” she says. “If he stays here he can be easily tracked. His movements are predictable. But if he doesn't have a base of operations then Sinbad and Arba can’t find him.”

Hakuryuu smiles and holds up his hands, eyes wide at her sudden enthusiasm. “While that was what we had planned, I didn’t expect you to be so focused on it.”

Kougyoku pulls back, arms crossed. “It’s Aladdin. And it’s Sinbad. Whatever we have to do,” she says, looking out over her maps. “To stop that man. And while you’re gone, I’ll do everything I can to save our country.”

She can’t hesitate anymore.

Sinbad probably thinks that by removing Hakuryuu from power and placing Kougyoku on the throne it will be so much easier for him to rip her country apart, but he has another thing coming. She’s not the little girl that can be easily broken anymore, and she refuses to become like that again.

“The problem for now,” she says, and pushes some of her papers aside to reveal an old book containing the primary laws of the empire, “is how we ensure the people knows their emperor has stepped down, when our laws clearly state emperors can’t be seen by their people.”

Her brother places a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t overthink it, sister,” he advises her. “Messengers have always been enough, and the people trust them. Besides, if Sinbad is really behind the rebellions, as soon as I step down they’ll vanish.”

Kougyoku nods. She wishes there was more she could do, but sometimes sticking to the old and familiar is for the best.

* * *

Kougyoku has attended too many coronations for a single life time.

She remembers her father’s.

Her father had been terrifying and intimidating, a god among men in a manner that spoke of judgement and terror, somebody who never came to her in the harem and never showed any of his children fondness or care. He was a figure to be feared, not respected.

Gyokuen’s coronation she remembers all too well. It had not been terror that fueled her then, older and standing on her own, with no maid to keep a hand on her shoulder so she wouldn’t run away. But she’d wanted to run. She’d wanted to run back to that beautiful island where everything had been good and there had been friends and a beautiful king to look up to. Gyokuen should never have had that seat; it should have gone to her brother, Kouen. But Gyokuen smiles, and Kougyoku stands amongst her sisters, hands clenched in her folds, and she knows that all they’ve worked for is going to be led astray.

Then there is Hakuryuu’s coronation. Under any other circumstances she would have felt pride for her brother, she would have been happy for him. It is, in the end and by blood, his rightful seat. It should have gone to him or Hakuei when their family was so viciously murdered, but her father had stolen it from them and so that future had seemed a feeble hope. She stands, not amongst her sisters this time, but alone. There is no maid to keep her still, only quiet rage and a black bird on her shoulder. She wants to run, but there is nowhere left to run; all she had held dear stolen from her, her hands forced to do the act. Like a puppet on the string of a different god.

At her own coronation she doesn’t run. She walks, with steady grace, eyes straight ahead under the new and unfamiliar headwear. She is the Daughter of Heaven now and she cannot be weak. She is strength, a pillar that holds up her country, one that stretches from horizon to horizon.

That is her role now.

And it is everything, and nothing at the same time.

She cannot be weak.

What follows the coronation is a series of attacks on smaller cities, but the rebellions dwindle slowly into nothing. 

Now that she is emperor she can no longer leave the sanctuary of the imperial palace, so she has no chance to see Sinbad’s expression, whether it be of surprise or victory, and while it does not exactly set her free it is a momentary reprieve that she appreciates.

Aladdin and Hakuryuu laugh themselves silly when she appoints Ka Koubun prime minister.

“It’s not like I can ask _you_  to do it,” she bristles at Hakuryuu. “Since you’re leaving soon. And Ka Koubun has always wanted power.” 

“Please just make sure you’re the one with the final say,” her brother says. “Or he’ll destroy the empire without Sinbad’s help.”

She huffs and crosses her arms.

Outside the stars are clear on the night sky, a panorama of intricate patterns of light welcoming her home, to a place she had never thought she would hold.

Aladdin places a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t doubt yourself too much while we’re gone.”

Kougyoku sticks her tongue out at him. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

She’s always despaired on her own, and while she has found that friends and laughter helps to keep the despair at bay, she will now have to find that strength within herself. She’ll need the strength to make the right decisions.

* * *

The King of Kina comes and goes on a secret envoy for negotiations on the near future, and both Hakuryuu, Morgiana and Aladdin vanish for a time.

It is a torturous few days.

Kougyoku sits meetings with her council, listens to the reports from her envoy who attends the meetings with the International Alliance, an elderly diplomat, one of the many who trained her as a young woman.

She is still young, but she does not feel it anymore.

She feels flayed at the sides, like a carpet trodden on for too long. But she can no longer show it. She has to keep her head high with the dignity of her position.

Kougyoku is sparring with members of her imperial guard when Hakuryuu and Morgiana return. Bright golden wings scatter, and then soar.

The household weapon of Amon is back on Morgiana’s ankels, casting a warm, golden glow across the entire palace. She is the phoenix, the promise of rebirth, a queen of strength and power.

At her side floats Hakuryuu in Zagan’s black form, grace and dignity coming natural with the freedom and power that the djinn provides.

A roar of greeting erupts from the imperial guard, the last remnants of a once mighty army and Kougyoku smiles with her soldiers.

“You did it!” She says, when they land, magic falling off them like golden petals, birds basking their wings towards the sky. She can feel her muscles stretch into a huge smile, can barely contain herself with glee for them, for her people, for the hope that they have provided simply by returning. “With this we can—“

Kougyoku stops herself at the look of their faces. Her friends do not smile, and their shoulders are tight.

Something has happened.

“Follow me,” she orders them instead of continuing her speech.

She straightens her shoulders and commands one of her assistants to prepare tea in her private chambers, and baths for the two returned warriors. She doesn’t even pay attention to the grimy army uniform she’s wearing or the sweat that has run cold against her skin.

Aladdin’s missing presence has not gone unnoticed.

“He’s keeping Sinbad and Arba occupied,” Morgiana says with heavy finality when they have settled.

It is a nearly fatal blow. So much more painful than it should have been.

Fear runs like ice up her spine and settles like ribbons around her throat, tightening with deadly force so she cannot breathe, cannot speak.

“We were looking for your metal vessel when they got news of us and had to flee,” Morgiana continues.

The words register in her brain, but she barely hears them.

“We had no other choice but to flee the place. They caught us over the sea between Sindria and Kou, and Aladdin asked us to go on ahead.”

It is all too unreal, like hearing of her brothers’ execution, like being told with heavy heart that Alibaba has perished, that little Judal is gone.

And it is too much. There is nothing left, no tears to shed. No voice to scream at the terror that shakes her heart and mind. She is tied hand and foot, with no real power to act, no strength to save her friend even when she wants to.

There was nothing she could do for her brothers, nothing she could do for Alibaba or Judal; they had already been dead, and even the powers of her household, the powers of healing, could do nothing for those already perished. The rukh does not return what it has already reclaimed.

Aladdin she could save. With her metal vessel. With her army.

But Sinbad had stolen both, and now he is about to take more, to steal from her those she loves, and those she cannot lose. One more time.

That night she dreams of blood splattered on a floor of darkness. A lone bird shakes its golden wings, it is weak and resting, its claws digging into the white cloth of something…

 _A body_.

Aladdin smiles at her, boyish and yet more grown, not quite an adult, but a magi holding up the world in spite of that.

 _Drip_.

Even when she is shaken awake in the early hours of the morning by Morgiana, when the night is still at its darkest, she does not fully comprehend that she is awake. There is still blood on the floor, after all, though it is dripping from—

There’s a gash down Aladdin’s middle, cuts and wounds red, red, red and —

Her mind does not, cannot take it in.

Blue eyes catch hers as her doctors help him to a bed in a chamber somewhere hidden within her imperial suits, and he smiles, weak and not quite humorous.

Kougyoku watches it all with the passivity of somebody in shock. She can see what is happening, can see that he is still alive, but the world is gray with her grief. The details stand out too stark in the dim lighting, yet she cannot assign them meaning.

The doctors come and go, rushing past her in a ghostly blur, and when they announce that they can do no more for him she has the presence of mind to call for her magicians.

Her voice rings out with authoritative finality, echoing within her own mind, and she sees the admiration in her people’s eyes, but she does not feel it.

She does not feel powerful.

It is magic that saves him. It is magic that closes his wounds and pushes the healing process. It is her doctors that tie up what remains of healthy, washed wounds, and it is her doctors that give him sleeping potions so he can rest until his body has recovered.

Kougyoku has guards placed outside his doors and stands alone down by his bed. Privacy yields freedom, at last, and her legs tremble under her until she can finally fall to her knees at his bedside.

She grips his hand between both of hers and rests her forehead against it.

Aladdin’s fingers are slim and weak again.

He grows too quickly, so quickly his body cannot provide the right kind of energy for it. She’d seen it in Kouha, that gangly presence who was always eating and never taking in enough.

She hopes, prays, with silent song that he is another Kouha; that he will miraculously return to her so her heart will not hurt so much. So stars will continue to shine in the sky, and she will be able to see the distant ocean in his eyes.

Tears fall silently onto the mattress, into his palm, and somehow the world rightens itself around her.

It is a slow realisation, but it does finally arrive; that she can make him live. Kougyoku does not have to wait for fate to take its course, for gods to make up their minds about whether or not her magi deserves to live.

He is alive now.

Aladdin is going to live.

And she’s going to make sure he continues to do so.

The determination gives her enough strength to straighten and dry her eyes. She does have power; it has not all been taken from her yet and it's about time she used it.

Kougyoku runs a tender thumb over his cheek, dark skin glowing in the morning light, a single star still remaining. The third eye reflects the glow of the sun and she smiles at it, thinking of the one day she’d worn it.

“I’ll be back,” she promises, placing a kiss just above the red jewel and giving his hand a squeeze before letting go.

She leaves the room to check on Morgiana and Hakuryuu, and to have her magicians send a message to the King of Kina.

* * *

Kougyoku washes herself and is dressed in her imperial robes. She eats at court and is seen doing all her imperial duties.

Her mind is in three different places at once; she is watching the entertainment prepared for the Daughter of Heaven; she is returning mentally to her early morning conversation with Takeruhiko; and she is in that lone chamber, hidden away in her apartments.

It is not proper, far from it. But Kougyoku does not care; these were the cambers clean enough, in a broken down palace, for a patient. It will ensure his survival, and with his placement so far into the Emperor’s domain nobody can touch him.

Most people at court don’t even know he is still here. Her doctors and magicians have been sworn to secrecy and the rest of the court therefore knows nothing. This is not a royal court, after all; the light of information that spies provide is snuffed out so easily with loyalty.

The only thing her courtiers will know, the only thing that Sinbad will ever know, is that Hakuryuu and Morgiana returned, fugitives of the International Alliance, and left the following morning.

Takeruhiko had provided the perfect place of refuge for them. The floating island moves undetected across both water and land, and it has done so for several years now. Only if you have direct connection, granted by the king, can you communicate with its inhabitants. And even then you may not be able to find it.

“Where will you go?” She asks in the courtyard.

Her hands are clasped in one of Hakuryuu and Morgiana’s hands each.

Kougyoku’s eyes are swimming; she does not want to say goodbye. She does not know when she will see them again, if ever. And she worries for them.

But she knows they are doing what they can, for all of them. For the world and for Aladdin. She knows what they are doing is absolutely necessary long term, and she has faith that they can accomplish their goal.

“No,” she says, shaking her head before she can say anymore, “don’t tell me. I shouldn’t know."

Morgiana smiles. “You already know,” she offers, sweet and kind, grabbing both Kougyoku’s hands. It is a gesture of understanding, because she has lost a deep connection as well, and they do not wish to lose each other. “I’m going home.”

With that the fanalis woman drags her into a fierce hug, which Kougyoku returns.

It is a tearful goodbye, but it is not a tragic one.

When she returns, finally free of obligations, to her chambers Hakuryuu’s final promise of return sings in her ears.

Aladdin is tired, but awake, when she enters the room.

She waves at her guards and entourage to stay behind, and the door shuts behind her.

“An empress leaving her servants behind,” Aladdin teases. “How will you survive without them?”

Kougyoku scoffs. “If I break down because of you, idiot, then I don’t want the entire imperial palace to know about it.”

Aladdin laughs weakly, as she props up his pillows a little better.

When she’s done he tilts his head, smirk in place. “You’re such a show-off.”

“Can’t be helped,” she sniffs with indignant grace. “The emperor cannot show weakness.”

Which is, of course, why she should never have been appointed emperor in the first place. She does not belong on the throne, she is just…

“How are you feeling?”

She tilts her head a little to the side to study him, and his eyes flitter away before returning, smile in place. “Your magicians are amazing, Kougyoku,” he says in that light airy voice that cannot entirely hide the tremble of exhaustion. “My wounds will be completely gone in a couple of days, so I’ll be back in fighting shape before you know it!”

Kougyoku sighs indulgently and places a hand against his cheek. “Aladdin,” she says, voice soft and her heart swells with a softness she does not quite recognize. Her thumb brushes his cheekbone, under his eyes, sky stretching far into the unknown, calling to her, promises of adventures she could barely imagine. “You are still a child. And you were nearly killed by people you trusted, people you still want to see good in.”

She knows him. She knows him now as well as Alibaba had. So she knows that he still wants to turn Sinbad away from the wrong path, that he cannot let go of his father’s best friend, even if she is nothing more than David’s puppet in this world.

Even though they have both caused her and Hakuryuu and so many others sorrow.

He can’t forsake them.

“How are you really feeling?"

She’s almost expecting him to get angry, for a sharpening jaw to set with stubborn finality.

Instead his gaze drops from hers, and his face feels warmer suddenly against her hand.

“I know,” he says, voice soft.

And for a while it is all he says.

Aladdin has never been stopped by age or experience; he’d travelled the world, gained friends and allies along the way, fought monsters in countless dungeons and battles. He’s saved so many people, and yet…

The freedom of a child is also the freedom of being underestimated, not taken seriously, and there is a powerlessness in it, when compared to what he might be able to do as an adult. That extra level of respect, of physical strength and wisdom that comes from experience, is still kept from him, held back by demands for maturity and number of years lived.

Kougyoku’s hand falls from his cheek and she takes his instead, and it somehow prompts Aladdin to speak.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t retrieve Vinea for you,” he says. “It—“

“Was not part of the plan,” she cuts him off and flicks him over the forehead with her free hand.

“OW!”

He pulls back fast, free hand going to his forehead and eyes watering. But his hand grips her hand as if it is a lifeline. “What was that for?” He complains in a louder voice.

“How could you put yourself in such danger, looking for something I would be incapable of keeping anyway,” she scolds him, voice rising with every word. “I cannot use Vinea. The Alliance would not allow it, and Sinbad would have a new excuse to punish Kou in your absence and—“

“Do you think I was just going to abandon it there when you could’ve had what’s rightfully yours? I thought we had more time!”

His voice is as loud as Kougyoku's, matching her word for word. And it infuriates her, as he has not infuriated her for months; stubborn idiot. Reckless and self-sacrificial.

“Well, you didn’t, and look what happened to you!” Kougyoku wants to gesture at him, wants to yell more and talk some sense into him. But her own words are like a weapon to the back of her head, and her lower lip trembles suddenly, tears spilling. “You could have died. Or worse. They could have…”

She trails off, incapable of putting words to her fears. They could have captured him, chained him and cut off his wings. Dyed him the colors of chaos and destruction. They would all be lost then, she knows, and everything they have done, all their hopes and sacrifices, for the ones they love, for the countries they have protected, would be for naught.

No.

She needs to trust him more than that.

He is a magi, after all. And not even a metal vessel user, a singularity, like Sinbad could overpower him.

Kougyoku dries her eyes and lifts her gaze to glare at him.

Aladdin stiffens where he sits, and she hits him gently over his healthy shoulder with her fist.

“Why do you keep hitting me?” He complains, hand that had been reaching out to her pulling back. “I don’t deserve that.”

“Yes, you do,” she says. “I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself or others for me, do you understand? I have my country and my people. What rightfully belongs to me is already in my hand, and that is not a metal vessel.”

When he hesitates she grips his hand a little tighter. “Aladdin,” she says, and her tone falls back into kindness. “You are independent. You always have been. Do not tie yourself to me or the Kou Empire, we’ve always done well by our own power and we will continue to do so.

“Humans learn to like themselves more if they better themselves through their own efforts, after all.”

Finally, he smiles.

It’s a slow one and his eyes dip away for a moment. Then he laughs. “That’s right!”

“And don’t you forget it,” she huffs.

But her superior expression melts away into an easy smile. She’s going to miss him.

Her fingertips grace his third eye as she reaches up to place her hand on his temple. Then she leans in and places a kiss against his forehead. “Come back stronger, Aladdin,” she says, smiling at his astonished expression. This close she can see flecks of white and gold in his eyes, clouds lit up by bright sunlight, golden birds singing joyfully over an open sea. His road is that of freedom and she wishes for a brief moment that she could walk it with him. Together.

Perhaps one day they will.

“I’ll stay here,” she adds. “And get stronger as well.”

His arm reaches up and settles over her shoulder, pulling her just a little closer, eyes closing as their foreheads touch. “I know you will.”

She smiles at the beautiful boy in front of her, even as he keeps his eyes closed. It is a warm gesture, one born of empathy and friendship, a different friendship than she’d had with Judal, a different one than she’d had with Alibaba or Morgiana or Hakuryuu.

He is not her magi, and she is not his king. But they’ll keep each other to the right road, to their own roads and their own destinies. And if their paths sometimes cross, willingly or by accident, all the better.

Golden birds settle on the bridges and rooftops that no longer look new or pristine, as golden sunlight lights up the early morning on the horizon. The harem is still abandoned, and this early in the morning no one will be missing her.

So Kougyoku takes Aladdin’s hand and smiles up at him. “I assume you already know where Morgiana and the others have gone.”

He nods and fiddles absently with his staff. “Otherwise it would be easy to find them,” he says. “Might take me a bit, but there’s always adventure waiting somewhere.”

Aladdin glances at her and she can see the suggestion there, childish and hopeful, but immature in the future they’re facing, the enemy pulling the threads. Which is also why he isn’t saying anything.

It’s odd, but it doesn’t feel like goodbye. Aladdin is leaving, but Kougyoku knows he will return. “Remember not to stay in touch,” she teases.

He frowns and it’s almost a pout. “Are you saying you won’t miss me?”

“Absolutely not,” she says, indignant and snobbish, but it’s a ploy. “You’re a childish little menace, and I’ll be happy to be rid of you.”

“Hey!” His smile falls at the insult. “I don’t deserve that.”

Kougyoku’s smile is probably a little too coy as she steps into him. “What?” She murmurs, and she can see the flush in his cheeks. “Are you saying you’re going to miss me?”

Aladdin hesitates and Kougyoku sees her chance to pull her arms around his shoulders. She has to stand a little on her tip toes to do so, but he lowers himself so she can stand flat. “I’m definitely going to miss you,” he admits, resting his cheek against hers.

It’s so honest, so warm she nearly forgets she wasn’t going to cry.

Aladdin is the summer sun, life-giving and impossible to ignore. He is a sky of freedom and adventure. And he is a promise of better times to come, a vow that people can get far by their own power.

“I’ll miss you too.”

But she can walk on her own two feet towards her own goal, she thinks, as she watches him vanish, merging with the blue sky above her, golden birds rising to follow their beloved magi.

“Princess,” Ka Koubun says, astonished, when she returns to her chambers already dressed a little later. “Where have you been?”

“Working,” she says, and smiles with confidence. “And it’s Empress now.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
